Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what decisions to deviate from EU REACH controls after the transition period will be open to challenge in the event that stakeholders identify risks to society, the economy, human health or the environment.

From 1 January, we will operate UK REACH. It will retain the fundamental approach and core principles of EU REACH and continue to provide high levels of protection for human health and the environment.

We will have the freedom to take our own decisions based on the scientific evidence and tailored to the needs of businesses, but this does not mean taking divergent decisions for the sake of it, nor reducing standards and levels of protection.

The legal framework for UK REACH provides for the input of external scientific advice to the UK Agency, so policy decisions on chemicals are supported by robust evidence and analysis. The UK Agency must then publish its opinions. This will ensure that there is transparency in the UK Agency’s opinion-making processes.

We will keep the same level of transparency and stakeholder engagement in the opinion forming processes as our EU equivalent and be able to draw from a pool of scientific experts as required. This will ensure that the regulatory processes can be properly held to account. By ensuring sufficient transparency of scientific discussions we will mirror ECHA’s approach to appointing accredited stakeholder organisations to observe ECHA Committee meetings.